1. New York Under Threat from Iran?
This Ongoing War: A Blog
http://thisongoingwar.blogspot.com/
15-Feb-12: Is New York threatened by an Iranian attack' You might be surprised
to know how real this is.
http://thisongoingwar.blogspot.
com/2012/02/15-feb-12-is-new-
york-threatened-by.html
Extracts:
In the Wall Street Journal yesterday, the director of intelligence analysis for
New York City's police department wrote a thoughtful and revealing analysis of a
major terrorist threat Here are some of his main points - but the whole article
is worth the three minutes of reading (and the hours of pondering that may come
afterwards) that it will take.
Less than two weeks ago, on February 3, 2012, the religious leader who rules
Iran, "Supreme Leader Ayatollah" Ali Khamenei, said in a widely publicized
speech that Iran has "its own tools" to respond to Western sanctions and threats
of military action directed against Iran.
Confirming this, James Clapper, the United States Director of National
Intelligence, testified during January to the US Senate that the Iranians are
"willing to conduct an attack in the United States in response to real or
perceived U.S. actions that threaten the regime."
To illustrate: in October 2011, an American "of Iranian descent" (as the news
media delicately put it) hired a killer from one of the Mexican drug cartels to
assassinate the Saudi Arabian ambassador to the United States. This attempted
murder was directed by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps and involved
blowing up a Washington DC restaurant. It's notable (though barely commented
upon in the news reports) that hundreds of restaurant patrons would likely have
been killed too had the plot not been thwarted.
Background: for decades, Iran's government has established a documented record
of exploiting its official presence in foreign places to carry out coordinated
terrorist attacks and killings, sometimes with the assistance of Lebanese
Hezbollah agents in their control.
The bombings of Jewish community buildings in Buenos Aires in 1992 (29 killed)
and again in 1994 (85 killed) provided some lessons for the NYPD. The Iranian
agents responsible for those terrorist outrages had been sent to Argentina years
before the attacks. They became integrated into local society. They took on
Argentine nationality. The chief imam of the At-Tauhid mosque in Buenos Aires
was the head of the gang and its main co-ordinator. [There is an open Interpol
warrant for his arrest.] He had been in Argentina since 1983, including a stint
as the cultural attache to the Iranian Embassy in Argentina. So he had
diplomatic immunity.
The Hezbollah agents brought in for the attack on innocent Argentine civilians
received support from the local Lebanese-Shiite community in Buenos Aries, as
well as from the 'diplomats' of the Iranian Embassy.
Iran's Hezbollah clients later tried to duplicate the Argentine results in a
series of failed attempts in Azerbaijan, Egypt and Turkey. Iranian agents in New
York have already shown similar intentions. For instance, two guards at Iran's
mission to the United Nations in NYC were sent home by the State Department in
2004 after conducting surveillance of city subways and landmarks. And in 2008,
two Staten Island men pleaded guilty to providing material support to Hezbollah.
In nearby Philadelphia, 26 people were indicted in federal court in 2009 for
conspiring to provide material support to the terrorist group.
Lebanese-linked businesses in the greater NYC area are implicated in a massive
money-laundering scheme benefiting Hezbollah. This came to light in December
2011 in a case filed by the Drug Enforcement Administration and the U.S.
Attorney for the Southern District of New York.
18 other Hezbollah-related cases have been brought in federal courts across the
United States since 2000.
As the NY police see it, the city's large Jewish population makes it
"increasingly attractive target". Iran's U.N. mission in the city allows
officials from Iran's Ministry of Intelligence to live and operate in New York
with official diplomatic cover.
Iran's Alavi Foundation, described as a not-for-profit devoted to charity works
and promoting Islamic culture, is "a front for the government of Iran" according
to Preet Bharara, the high profile US Attorney for the Southern District of New
York. His office in conjunction with the NYPD Intelligence Division seized
Alavi's assets, including the largest Shiite mosque in the city and the location
most closely affiliated with Iran's U.N. mission.
It may be hard to comprehend that terrorist activity can be taking not only
right under American noses but literally just down the block from some of New
York's and America's most powerful and sensitive New York-based institutions.
Is there a real and present danger' It will always be hard to know until it's
already happened, as it did yesterday in Bangkok and New Delhi. By then of
course it's too late, at least for the immediate victims.
2. Huckabee: No Republican Will Win
Without Supporting Israel
http://www.israelnationalnews.
com/News/News.aspx/152936
By Elad Benari & Yoni Kempinski
First Publish: 2/21/2012, 2:15 AM
Extracts:
Former Arkansas governor and Fox News host Mike Huckabee is in Israel once
again. Arutz Sheva met him on Monday.
His visit comes a little over a year after his last visit to the Jewish State,
during which he said that if he were president of the United States he would
move the American embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
Huckabee considered running for the Republican party's presidential ticket, but
ultimately decided not to run.
Huckabee told Arutz Sheva that he will soon bring a group of 175 Americans to
visit Israel, something which he does at least once a year.
'I want people to see Israel firsthand,' he said. 'Most Americans simply cannot
appreciate how small, geographically, Israel is, how vulnerable it is, and how
much it means to have the American support so it can maintain its integrity.'
He added, 'The United States and Israel mirror each other in so many ways, so I
want people to see Israel for all the magnificent history but I also want them
to see it for all of the importance that it holds in contemporary world
politics.'
Addressing the race for the Republican presidential nominee, Huckabee said that
it is very clear that 'no one is going to win the Republican nomination without
a strong, very solid commitment to not only the security of Israel, but to
standing with Israel against any type of threat.'
Regarding a possible military strike by Israel against Iran, a strike that
Israel may not coordinate with the United States, Huckabee said, 'Israel has to
act according to its survival.'
He said that he believes 'the average American, and overwhelmingly the American
people' will support Israel in doing whatever it has to do to protect itself
from Iran, even if the president does not agree with it.
3. Bare-Breasts in the Bus.
The Buses part 3.
A few years ago, Yours Truly, was sitting on a bus minding his own business.
Along came a young woman with a baby in her arms. She sat down besides me,
opened up her shirt, took out a naked breast and suckled the infant.
Frankly I felt that such behavior might be justified. We are in favor of breast
feeding and perhaps European-derived prejudices are not in place?
Even so, one can understand how a full-time Talmudic Scholar might not have felt
exactly comfortable in a similar situation.
If a woman wants to breast-feed her child on a bus why should there not be a
separate females-only section for her to do it in?
What is the problem with separate gender seating on lines where more than 90% of
the consumers want it?
The distinct impression is that most of the feminist activists and their male
aficionados who demonstrate against separate seating do not normally travel on
buses.
If they do they certainly do not usually use the same lines as the Chareidim.
The Chareidim are in effect exploited by the authorities and bus line services.
They are forbidden to run their own lines and have to use the Government
authorized Eged bus-service monopoly.
They consequently receive less buses per line than is accepted and suffer from
bad service.
If anything the subsequent unwarranted over-crowding on unmixed lines creates a
feeling of uneasiness and results in males and females being thrust up against
each other.
This is what brought about the separate seating arrangements in the first place.
The Ultra-Orthodox are attacked and harassed by the Media and by anti-Religious
anti-Jewish activists who in some cases are funded by foreign governments and
NGOs to work against them.
The ultimate goal of such organizations is the undermining of Israeli society
and the State of Israel.
This may sound far-fetched but it is close enough to what those responsible
themselves say openly.
See:
JN-980.
Jerusalem News.
#3. Foreign Interference in Israeli Affairs. Part Two of The Buses: The
Anti-Jewish Aspect.
http://www.britam.org/JN3/JN980.html#3
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